THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Thursday filed smuggling charges against a garment importer and a player in the construction, design, engineering and distribution of telecommunications facilities and equipment.

Charged was Juliana Octavio, proprietor of Adventure Trading, which was able to evade the payment of 10-percent duty on the almost 600 packages of fabrics imported from Thailand in November by allegedly using fake forms to avail of the privilege under the Asean Common Effective Preferential Tariff (Cept).

Commissioner Angelito Alvarez said Octavio’s case involving the use of fake forms on tariff-free goods was the BOC’s first since the agreement was enforced.

Normally, such shipment should have been subjected to a duty rate of 10 percent but the importer was able to secure its release without payment of duties because it was declared to be zero-rated based on the submitted Asean-Cept Form D.

The BOC said Octavio has to pay the government P4.63 million based on the computation of a landed cost of P579,174 multiplied eight times.